


He fell, I Should Have Followed

by QuothTheRaven_Nevermore



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M, Mentions of Suicide, Stucky - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-14
Updated: 2016-06-14
Packaged: 2018-07-15 00:20:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7197500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QuothTheRaven_Nevermore/pseuds/QuothTheRaven_Nevermore
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>‟He fell, so you chained his name to the rosary hanging heavy as a hangman's knot around your neck and begged God to take you too.”<br/>Bless me father, for I have sinned; he fell. I should have followed."</p><p>Au based on this quote from Tumblr. .</p>
            </blockquote>





	He fell, I Should Have Followed

**Author's Note:**

> Quote is from this person on Tumblr. http://wintersoldier.tk/post/121377679319/he-fell-so-you-chained-his-name-to-the-rosary  
> And if the author of the quote wants me to fuck off then I will and I'll take this down

 

_‟He fell, so you chained his name to the rosary hanging heavy as a hangman's knot around your neck and begged God to take you too.” Bless me father, for I have sinned; he fell. I should have followed._

 

 

Steve watches Bucky fall, feels his heart fall with him. He feels his stomach come back up as he retches on the floor of the still moving train. As he sees his breakfast hit the floor, he wonders why the train is still moving, still hurtling toward wherever it's supposed to be going. Steve wonders why the train is still moving even when everything else in his life has stopped. His heart, his thoughts, the very blood in his veins has stopped. The world should have stopped turning, stopped spinning on it's axis.

But as Steve stands up and wipes his mouth and looks out the gaping hole of the train, he sees that it's still all moving. Bucky's body is long gone now, buried under the very snow that now looks like the most inviting blanket. Steve stops where the ragged bits and pieces of the metal start. He watches the ground move below him, a blur of white and black and blue. He thinks of how easy it would be, to jump. To be just another fallen soldier in a war where no one's going to make it out alive. They already wrote one letter claiming him dead, how hard could it be to write another? Steve looks down at the snow and thinks that it would be poetic almost, to fall. To be taken by the same snow that took his heart, his very soul. He thinks about walking off. Just before he takes the final step, the most peaceful step of his life, he hears the door be opened. Another soldier. Another soldier that for a second reminds him so much of Bucky that he almost falls to his knees to weep, to shout with joy, to thank any god that will listen for bringing Bucky back to him. But Steve blinks and the soldier's features come into focus. Lighter hair, darker eyes, lighter skin. Not Bucky. He feels what's left of his heart shatter, the jagged edges cutting into him deep.

"Cap?" the soldier asks, helping Steve realize that it's really not Bucky. Bucky never called him 'Cap'.

Steve shakes his head, forcing his eyes to stay dry. He can't. He can't focus, can't think, can't even breathe. "Barnes," is all he manages to say before his mind goes completely blank.

Steve doesn't remember much after that. He doesn't remember what happened on the train, or what happened after. The only thing he knows is that he tried to drink himself stupid, only to remember that he couldn't, at least not anymore. He remembers shattering a bottle, the amber liquid sliding down the wall. He remembers the cuts on his hands healing before they could hurt, leaving him empty and aching to ache. It left him wanting to hurt, to feel excruciating pain, to feel like he was never going to be okay again. But all he felt that night was...empty. He remembers being found by Peggy, remembers thinking that she was the most beautiful woman alive but also that she was what he hated most because she made him see sense. She told him it wasn't his fault. Tried to console him when all he wanted to do was grieve. Well Steve would soon have more than enough time to grieve.

The next event Steve remembers after that is flying the plane. He remembers the overwhelming sense of relief he felt when he went down with his ship. He said a goodbye to Peggy, perhaps the only person he would ever really miss. The ice cold water hit him like a welcome punch. It froze him from head to toe, left him shivering as he stayed afloat. He didn't try to swim, didn't try to make it anywhere but the bottom of that deep, dark ocean. The ice cold water filled his lungs, a beautiful pressure against his chest. It filled his pockets, soaked his clothes, weighed him down like a sack of rocks. And Steve let it. He let it carry him down, wondering if Bucky was this peaceful as he fell. Steve let the water coax tears out of him, sobs that were nothing but pockets of air that floated to the surface and burst, his screams being swept away by the ocean air. Steve remembers hitting the floor of the ocean, after falling for what felt like an eternity. Steve wanted nothing more than to die, to have his mind go completely blank except for an image of his lover in his mind. But that never happened. Steve remembers lying somewhere, somewhere cold. He couldn't move. Couldn't fight, couldn't even make his way to the ocean that he so desperately wanted to drown in.

Steve remembers being in that ice for years and years and years. Seventy years to be exact, they would tell him later. 1940 long gone. A whole new world. But still, Steve would come to find, one without James Buchanan Barnes.

Steve remembers lying in that ice coffin for decades. Steve remembers lying in the cold, replaying Bucky falling over and over again. Steve remembers tears trying to fall but freezing before they could. Steve remembers being asleep sometimes, not being able to tell his dreams from the memories. It was all of the same thing anyway.

As he lied there he heard the ice speaking to him, sounding like Bucky when he fell. Shouting, screaming his name in a horrible yell. Bucky's desperate plead for Steve to do something, anything to save him. Steve closes his eyes and sees Bucky's outstretched hand, reaching for him. Steve tries to grab it, his hand frozen in ice. Steve wonders if Bucky's frozen in ice now too, after having been lying in that ravine for so long. He's comforted, knowing that at least now he's in the same place as Bucky. Steve waits for death. Waits for the feeling of his own heart stopping, his own blood, now sluggish in his veins, to stop moving completely. Steve waits to stop breathing, to feel his lungs burst right before he doesn't feel anything at all. He thinks he'll starve, die of hunger, maybe of insanity.

But he doesn't.

Steve lies there and counts the seconds that pass. A hundred. A thousand. A million. A billion. He loses track of time, one second blending into the next. He lies there until the only thought he has is Bucky's face as he falls. The only thing he hears is Bucky's yell, his heart even adjusting to sound like his last frantic scream. The ice under his fingers feels like the metal bar that he clung onto as he realized Bucky was too far away, feels like the unforgiving floor under his palms as he threw up everything in his stomach. The darkness behind his eyelids feels too much like what he wants, but not enough to satisfy him. Steve wants to die. For so long, when he was young, he wanted to do nothing more than live, live and fight. But now he's weary. He's given up. He wants nothing more than to give up and die, but his own traitorous body won't let him. It keeps blood moving through his veins to the rhythm of Bucky's yells, it keeps air somehow moving through the ice, feeling as cold as the one that nipped at his nose when Bucky became nothing more than a speck in the distance. Steve's lying, betraying body keeps his brain functioning even when Steve wants to turn everything off.

Steve's awake when he sees light for the first time in so long. His eyelids are frozen shut, have been since he fell. But he hears noises, aside from the endless cry that's been replaying for seventy years. His own thoughts have become a roar on his head, at some point coming in to join Bucky's voice. It should have been me. It should have been me. It should have been me. Steve listens as people talk and drag him up out of the ice, out of his own coffin. He feels the sun burn through his eyes even when they're closed. And, as they carry him to God knows where, Steve thinks that it must be a joke. Because as he feels himself be moved, for the first time in decades, he feels the sudden, harsh pull of sleep as it drags him under without regard.

Steve is sleeping. He knows he's sleeping. Because Bucky's here. He's holding onto the railing of the train, his knuckles white with the effort. Steve is close, so close. Close enough to almost brush his fingers against Bucky's. He holds his hand out. Bucky reaches. Bucky falls. Steve falls with him. It's the most pleasant dream Steve's ever had. To know that he fell with him. That Bucky didn't die alone. That Steve didn't have to try and go on without him. So as Steve feels himself falling, the stomach-in-your-throat, screaming-at-the-top-of-your-lungs falling, he smiles. He smiles because his prayers have been answered.

When Steve wakes up it's to a disappointment he never knew was possible. His dream. His beautiful dream. He fell. He fell and died like it should have been. He stands, a game on the radio. A game that's out of place because he's not there. A woman comes in. She looks like Peggy, but wrong. Not like her at all. Steve hears himself speak, say something to her. She replies with none of Peggy's pleasant accent or grace. Steve runs out. A street. Hot concrete under his feet. Clothes on his body that aren't his own. He looks around. Lights. Too many lights. Too bright. He looks around. Cars that aren't his own. Honking horns. People passing. Advertisements for products he's never seen before. Never heard of. Steve's head is spinning even as cars whiz past him. Where is he? What is this? Where is his New York? Where are the streets he grew up on. He looks at a street sign, bright green and white. He knows this street. Or did. It's not the same, can't be. This isn't the street he used to run down. This is something else, an impostor. He hears someone call his name. He turns. A man. A man in a large black coat and an eye patch. Steve listens to this man talk. Seventy years. That's how long Bucky's scream rang in his hears without stopping, how many years Steve begged a God that wouldn't listen to do just one miracle: stop his heart. Steve listens and agrees to be whatever this man wants him to be.

Steve lives in a small apartment. Scarce furniture, no decorations. The carpet is worn from the old tenants. There are grease stains on the walls that aren't from him. The doorway has notches carved into it, measuring the height of a child that no longer runs through the hallway. One light switch was installed wrong, so up is off and down is on. There is a hole in the ceiling from something. Steve doesn't know what. Doesn't care either.

His bed is large, too large without a body next to him. He remembers his old bed. A twin mattress that he was given by a woman who's son had grown out of it. He remembers sleeping in it with Bucky. Remembers how close they'd have to be. Steve lies in his king size bed now, wishing it was a twin mattress with old sheets and a thread-bare blanket.

Steve goes to church on Sundays. Late. After Mass. So late that the only one left is the lonely priest about to retire for the night. He knees at the altar of ever-burning candles. He doesn't light two like he knows he should. One for him and one for the name heavy on his tongue. He doesn't confess his sins to the priest although he has too many to count. He kneels at one bench in the front, palms together, fingers laced. He has only one prayer. A single plead and one confession. Steve kneels and closes his eyes tightly, lest he open them and find that he's back at an ordinary church, sacred only because the people believe it is. Steve closes his eyes tightly because he doesn't want to see the image of a God that hasn't helped him. Steve closes his eyes to shield himself from the candles burning bright like the eyes of a fallen soldier from long ago.

Steve closes his eyes and his lips move in a prayer too low to hear. Steve stands. He throws money in a tray. He leaves. The priest watches him go, Steve reminding him of a close friend. He knows Steve will be back next Sunday, looking like Atlas with the heavens on his shoulders.

Steve goes home. Hopes his prayers will be answered. Wakes up. They aren't.

Steve goes to the church the next Sunday. He sees a man sitting in his bench, the same one he's been going to for so many years that he's sure he's left imprints on the carpet of his knees. He kneels next to the man, glances at him. He's blind. A cane between his hands as he sits and asks God for forgiveness. Steve doesn't listen to the man's sins, doesn't want to hear. It's not his business what the man has done, not when he has done so much worse.

Steve waits for the man to finish. The man stands and Steve hears his quiet, almost soundless footsteps on the floor. The man sits a few benches behind, inclining his head as Steve prays. Steve stands, the man is still sitting at the bench behind him. When Steve passes by, the man is looking forward, his eyebrows slightly furrowed. The man hears Steve walk out, the slice of light from the street cutting through the darkness of the church, disappearing with Steve as the door closes. The man thinks about what he heard, what he wasn't meant to hear. _Bless me father, for I have sinned; he fell. I should have followed._

The man stands up from the bench and walks out of the church. He wonders what the man at the church could have seen that he would give up this world, this brilliant world on fire, for. He walks, his cane tapping against concrete and wonders.

Steve helps save the world. More than once. Aliens invade. He helps stop them. He aruges with Stark, fights the people that think they're his best friends. Steve's had one best friend and he sure as hell isn't in New York anymore, now or ever again. Steve wakes up, eats, saves, sleeps. Goes to church on Sundays. He thinks he's only alive because his body won't let him die. He doesn't see the blind man again. He still doesn't light the candles.

Natasha visits him. He laughs at the right times, says the right things, makes her think he's okay. And not burning from the inside out. Steve pretends to make a friend. Sam. He likes Sam, thinks he could be his real friend if the memories of his old one didn't invade every thought in his mind. Steve searches all of New York until he finds what he wants. It's heavy in his hands, too heavy. Heavier than his heart. Steve sets it down on his dresser as he goes out to see what's attacking the world now.

Steve comes back, sees it on his dresser. The gun. Shining and glimmering. Like crystals in the sun. Not like the weapon that's going to take his life.

Steve sees Nick in his apartment. He follows someone onto the roof. Throws his shield, has it thrown back at him. He goes back inside his house and wonders why his heart isn't beating any faster, just thump-thump-thumping on to the beat of Bucky's screams.

Natasha comes for him. Tells him about HYDRA, about SHIELD. About the Soldier. Steve doesn't care. Doesn't care that this person has killed dozens. He goes into the mall, kisses Natasha. He feels nothing, not even embarassment as people look away. He talks to the man at the store with the long hair and blue shirt and the name tag. Steve doesn't want to go to the old army base. His feet fail him as they get closer. His chest tightens. His vision blurs. His stomach threatens to empty itself, althought there is nothing in it. Steve hasn't eaten in days, has forgotten to. Has hoped that he might die if he went enough days. He hasn't. Steve forces every muscle in his body to move into that camp, move through the buildings. Steve holds back a sob as he sees Bucky in everything. Steve looks around, as if in a daze. Nataha doen't notice as she walks. Steve notices something, out of place. A building. He tells Natasha. He follows her, trying to get the searing memories out from behind his eyes. They walk into a room. Screens everywhere. Suddenly, they're being talked to. Steve listens, doesn't feel anything as he is still assaulted by Bucky. Him and Bucky running together, trying to figure out how his new body worked. Steve walked faster when he saw where they slept. The cramped bunk where he and Bucky would make love to each other in any way that they could. Steve can't say he's completely devastated when the entire place goes up in flames a minute later.

Sam drives. Steve and Natasha sit. Steve engages in conversation, his mind still where it always is. He feels something hit the roof of the car. He is moved out of the way a millisecond befoe his brains would have been splattered on the seat. He doesn't know if he should thank or condemn Natasha for that. The sweet abyss just narrowly missing him. He grabs his friends as he pulls them out of the car, the three of them on the door of the car.

There's a man in a mask. Steve knows that this man can kill him. That he should kill the man. Steve knows that he wants to be killed by this man. He runs after him, instincts taking over as he dodges slice after slice that would disembowel him. Steve hears the horrible sound of the knife cutting through the side of a van. He feels the man's metal arm hit him. Relishes the pain. It's the most he's felt in years. The man tries to kill him. Tries but fails. Steve hates the man for this, but knows that the man has the power to kill him. Steve fights the man again. He rips off his mask. Steve tries to look at him, look at beautiful Death. Steve catches only a glimpse of slate grey eyes before the man is turning around and disappearing.

Steve goes to church. The blind man is there. Sitting in the back. Steve walks past him. Straight to his bench. He pauses. And then goes to light two candles. He kneels. And he prays.

From the back of the church, the blind man listens. Steve doesn't know this. He also doesn't know that the blind man can hear everything he's saying. Under his shirt, visible only to the blind man, Steve has a rosary, his mothers that he always carried, still carries. She prayed of for his father while holding it. And now, holding it himself, Steve prays for his lover. In his pocket, Steve has a locket. An old, faded picture cut into a crude circle. Of a young man with a winning smile and eyes to die for. A man that Steve let down. A man that Steve just lit a candle for.

The blind man listens as the man in the front prays. _Bless me Father, for I have sinned; he fell. I should have followed_. The blind man thinks that this is everything he'll say. It always is. But today, the prayer is different. _Let me follow him today, Father. Let me fall._ The man clutches the rosary and the beads tightly in his hand. _Let me follow him today._ He stands. Leaves. The blind man wonders.

Steve is on something close to a plane. He has one job. He's failing. The man from the bridge is close enough to touch, his fist painted in Steve's blood. Steve's smiling. His prayes have been answered. There is broken glass beneath him. A gaping hole. A fall. A beautiful fall. The man has no mask now. Steve sees him and thanks whoever he can remember that his mind has finally taken over. That this man looks like what he wants the most.

"You're my mission," the man tells Steve, the man that Steve is imagining to be Bucky. You're my mission. Steve's never heard more beautiful words. This is one mission Steve will fail. He's okay with that. 

"Then finish it," Steve says, letting his shield drop. He's tired. Oh so tired. All he wants is for this to be over. "Because I'm with you till the end of the line." The words slip out, Bucky so prominent in his mind that Steve believes he's acutally seeing Bucky standing above him.

The man hesitates. And Steve, in an instant, realizes that he's not dreaming, this isn't a hallucination. This is real. Bucky is real. Bucky is here. Bucky is alive. But Steve can do nothing about it as he falls. In an instant, Steve's heart starts beating again. His blood roars in his veins, furious at being stalled for so long. Steve breathes air, real air. He tastes blood in his mouth, the only thing he's really tasted in years. Steve is alive. Alive as Bucky that's standing in front of him. Steve almost smiles, as he realizes that his prayers have finally been answered.

He has Bucky back. He's here, real. And, just as quickly as that hope came, it goes. Steve's falling. Falling and seeing the slate grey of Bucky's eyes light up with surprise and horror. He sees his hand stretch out to grab him, fingers almost close enough to touch. And as Steve falls, he realizes that this is how Bucky felt. It's laughable. His prayers finally answered, the only time in his entire existense he wishes they hadn't been. As Steve's body hits the water and his head collides with a something hard that knocks the breath out of him, he can only think that his prayes had finally been answered. He begged God for so long to take him along with Bucky. So many spend afternoons at that church, each one another hope sent up to whoever was listening. To take him. Take him and not let him go. Take him away to somewhere else, better or worse, so that he could rest. So his mind could turn off, shut out James Buchanon Barnes. As Steve feels the breath leave his body, the blood slow down, his heart beat lower until it's barely there, he thinks that maybe he was never meant to be happy, that maybe he shouldn't have prayed. He's moving from one world without Bucky to another.

 _...he fell; I should have followed._ I've finally followed, Steve thinks as he closes his eyes and lets out the last of the air in his lungs, rising up to break on the surface in an immense sigh of relief.

The man doesn't come back to church. But another does. Another with long, dark hair and dead eyes. The man has been to Hell and back. He knees in a bench at the front. A spot that's sat empty for several weeks. As he walks in, he sees a blind man sitting in the back. He doesn't say anything. He walks to the front and lights two candles. One for himself and another for the face behind his eyes and taking up his entire mind. The man kneels. And when he opens his mouth to speak, the blind man's head rises as he hears his words. The man leaves. The blind man understands. The man's only words were, _Bless me father, for I have sinned; he fell. I should have followed_

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in like an hour and at 2:30 am sorry for any bad spelling or inconsistencies.  
> Comments and advice are appreciated.


End file.
